It is well known that a support belt may be secured around a human user's waist with the effect of increasing the user's strength and load carrying ability, relieving back pain, and other benefits. However, there is a concentration of sweat glands in the abdominal area of the waist where such belts are usually secured which can generate a significant volume of perspiration, and thus that area serves an important purpose for proper cooling of the human body.
Traditionally, support belts have been made of relatively heavy and stiff natural materials, usually leather. An improved belt, made of synthetic materials laminated together is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,782,535 issued Nov. 8, 1988. In this belt, an inner fabric layer, an intermediate foam layer, and an outer fabric layer are laminated together and a high strength nylon strap is wrapped around the lamination and secured thereto. A buckle is provided to secure the ends of the strap so as to hold the belt around the waist of a user. An improved buckle structure for securing such a belt is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,036,864, issued Aug. 6, 1991.
Prior belts, while having desirable strength and stiffness characteristics, have in general been made of closed, relatively unbreathable materials. Such belts have not allowed for significant ventilation or perspiration drainage or evaporation of the abdominal area encompassed by the belt and therefore have been hot under some circumstances for the user to wear.
A belt addressing these problems is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,178,163 which issued Jan. 12, 1993. The belt disclosed in this patent is of the same basic construction as the belt disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,782,535, but the intermediate foam layer is perforated to provide ventilation and drainage from the inner fabric layer to the outer fabric layer. While the disclosed construction affords significant advantages, room still exists for improvement. In particular, it is desired to reduce the weight of the belt and increase the ventilation through the belt, while maintaining the strength and stiffness characteristics which are important in belts of this type.